Monday, January 17, 2011

Which sequels were truly better than the originals? Finally! The answers! This chart graphs the Rotten Tomatoes scores of a hundred-some sequels against the scores of the originals which preceded them. Apparently the first Star Trek movie really did suck!

Click to make bigger.

Yup, that's Wrath of Khan way up there above the "better-than-the-original" dotted line—the originals' scores are plotted on the the X-axis; the sequels' scores on the Y. Other quantitatively better sequels: Dark Knight, Stuart Little 2, and Mighty Ducks D2. I've always said that! Fans of Bad News Bears Go To Japan, however, which appears to be the greatest drop in critical acclaim from an original film to it sequel, might not like what they see.

The map was created by Edmund over at BoxOfficeQuant.com, and once you figure out how to read it, there's all sorts of interesting box office history to glean. Post it to your Facebook wall and watch your film-loving friends go absolutely crazy. [BoxOfficeQuant via We Love Data Vis]